


Before The Storm

by blanketed_in_stars



Series: 52 Weeks of Wolfstar [39]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: 1995, Christmas, M/M, Moonlight, Winter, don't let this one fool you into thinking it'll end happily
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-02
Updated: 2015-10-02
Packaged: 2018-04-24 09:53:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4914958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blanketed_in_stars/pseuds/blanketed_in_stars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Christmas, 1995. A cold bedroom. Warmer hearts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Before The Storm

**Author's Note:**

> Week 39

“It’s freezing in here,” Remus says, coming up the stairs. “Has someone—What are you doing?”

Sirius looks around with his arms still hanging out the window. “I needed some fresh air,” he explains.

Remus wraps his arms around himself. He doesn’t move from the doorway. “It’s December,” he says.

“Yeah. Christmas, in fact.” Sirius smiles, or tries to. “Come look at the stars, Moony.”

“It’s _freezing,”_ Remus repeats. “I’d rather not.”

Sirius shrugs. “Fine, but you’re missing out.” He hears a loud sigh, and a few seconds later feels Remus squeeze in next to him on the narrow windowsill.

“Aren’t you cold?” Remus asks.

“Not so much now.” Sirius glances out the corner of his eye. “Look at the stars. They’re bright tonight.”

Remus tilts his head back and the light of the moon, just waning, transforms his face into a blank landscape devoid of shadow. Sirius can see the green of his eyes made pale. “Very bright,” Remus agrees softly. “It’s beautiful.”

“You’re beautiful.” God, he is. His scars are washed-out, nonexistent, but even when they’re dark and bold, Sirius knows that Remus is exquisite. And not just in looks, but in early morning whispers and cups of tea and the way he tucks one foot behind the other to curl up on a chair.

And Remus, gorgeous, lovely, divine, keeps his eyes on the heavens. A smile plays at the edges of his mouth. “It’s very cold,” he says. “I’m not sure you understand. This room is like an icebox.”

Sirius does understand; he can’t feel his fingers or toes, and his arms ache. His thin shirt isn’t enough to stop the wind that’s blowing, and he shivers.

“See?” Remus says, shuddering as well. “Let’s go to bed, get warm again.”

As inviting as it is, Sirius is tethered to the window, or rather, to the air and snow and world outside it. The wide moon and deep drifts make him feel something he can’t quite explain. It’s more than the longing to get out, which never leaves him, and more than the cabin fever that’s visited him every winter of his life. No, this is deeper, painted into the night. “Just a few more minutes,” he tells Remus.

“All right.” Remus sighs again, not as heavily. “It is quite pretty,” he says. “I meant that, all compliments aside.”

Sirius shifts into him. “I don’t like the stars much,” he confesses.

“What? You asked me to look at them.”

“Outside my window in Azkaban,” Sirius says, “all I could see was the stars and the moon.”

“Oh.”

There’s silence then, broken only by their breathing and the passing of Muggle cars, until Sirius decides that maybe more explanation is merited. “I’d put my arm through the bars,” he says. “I didn’t know what I was trying to reach.” He stretches towards the snow, several stories below. “I could never get out. I knew that. I just—wanted some kind of freedom, even if it was just one limb, and only for a minute or two.”

He isn’t sure he’s made anything clearer, but Remus says, “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry? Why?”

“I didn’t think.” Remus presses his face into Sirius’s shoulder. “Keep the window open as long as you like.”

Sirius’s arms are all gooseflesh, his fingers entirely numb. The luminaries watch as he shakes his head, turns inside. “I’m done. Let’s go to bed.”

“You’re sure?” Remus gazes at him with more than one question in his bleached eyes. “We don’t have to.”

“We’ll keep the window open,” Sirius says, “but I don’t want to look out anymore.” They climb into bed and Sirius reaches for Remus, for this arresting man who hates the moon as much as he does, but still loves the stars, blindly, as the poets do. Sirius trembles with cold and a feeling of relief. “I don’t _need_ to look out anymore,” he says. “You know why?”

“No,” Remus says, that same smile dancing on his lips, “why?”

Sirius kisses him and feels it bloom. “I’ve found what I was reaching for.”


End file.
